 In this episode, we interview one of the most inspirational music marketers in the game, and boy, he's revealed some of the things that he's seen, people behind the scenes that look like they're winning, that he's working with, and what they're doing, but it's not hitting like you think it is and how you can avoid it yourself. And on top of that, like the amount of time that it usually takes artists to blow up. The ones he's working with successfully and looks like it's happening fast was really going on behind the scenes. If you want to know, check this episode out. What's up? What's up? What's up? I'm brand man Sean. And I'm Corey. And we are back with another episode of No Labels Necessary Podcast, and you can catch us everywhere on YouTube, Spotify, wherever we stream our podcasts. And if you know when we do this intro, that means we got an interview because we only say this for interviews when we have dope people on today. And today, man, we have a great creative currency conversation because we have one of the leading voices on the interwebs when it comes to music marketing like dope advice. And I would say probably like the source in terms of one of the individuals in terms of inspiration. He really knows this stuff, been watching him for a while. This individual, this sir that we are about to speak with today, goes by the name of Promo God. Appreciate you hopping on, man. What's up, everyone? How you guys doing? Hey, great, great, great, man. I feel like this is actually a long overdue conversation on the pod. And today, you know, really just want to give some game, man. You've been working, like literally doing this for real for real. You know, a lot of people just drop quotes, but you actually do marketing for real. You're not just sitting in a room coming up with great thoughts, even though the thoughts are great, they will be helpful one way or another. But I think it makes a difference and you can tell over time when somebody actually does work. So I want to start off with a quote of yours. We're going to be doing multiple quotes. That's going to be the themes of the podcast because you dropped so many great ones on, well, Twitter, but then you put them on IG. If you're not willing to work on your music career for four to five years for free, don't expect to get paid from it. That's an interesting thought and I feel like that's a semi-controversial thought for some people. I would like to hear you expand on that. Just in general, like every artist that I've worked with that has any established fan base, a lot of them prior to getting to that place were investing a lot of money and just doing a lot of different things for free just to get the exposure as far as collaborating, networking, just putting out content, just consistently making music and putting it in front of people that need to see it until the point they get to the point where their music takes off and they have a fan base. So if you're an artist and you're not willing to work a couple years, four or five years for free, you probably won't get to the point where people want to pay you for the content that you put out and the music that you put out. That makes sense. What do you say to the people who say, but man, look at all these other industries or even point to another artist or two that started popping and moving along faster and they are getting paid a good amount? A lot of times those people have people investing in them, a lot of money behind the scenes invested in them, and that's the main reason why a lot of those artists blow up out of nowhere. I'm not saying it's not possible to blow up in a short period of time without getting paid right away. I'm just saying it's very rare because in most cases where you do have someone that seems like they're coming out of nowhere and blowing up and getting paid overnight. In most cases, a lot of times those artists were grinding behind the scenes where people didn't see them for a long time until they got to that point. On top of that, they have people that are invested in them because I work with a lot of artists that people might think fit in that frame, but a lot of them have investors behind the scenes invest in tens of thousands of dollars into their social media and just market it in general. If I'm an indie and I don't have those guys, what should I be doing in those four to five years to make sure? If you're independent and you don't have the funds to invest in yourself and get to the next level, what you have to do is, in my opinion, and a lot of people don't like this because I've seen this work for a lot of people, but you have to find something else that you're really good at as far as music and you have to figure out how to monetize that. It could be content on social media, it could be vlogs, it could be any sort of content where you're making content based around something else that you're interested in and you're putting out a lot of content based around that topic to get people behind you and to know about you as a brand and you monetize that as well and grow your fan base with the other type of content that you're making. As you're monetizing and making money, let's just say you're into traveling or you're into fitness based around those things out there and you're using that to grow your music and monetize your audience, if that makes sense. Yeah, man. I love hearing that because I think it's actually underrated. I think a lot of people when they hear anything other than music specifically, they think, oh man, I don't want to get lost in the sauce. I only want people to think about me one way and I don't want to get trapped in this fitness brand or insert whatever other brand, but we're talking about being indie and do you want to be caught up in whatever kind of work you currently have or would you be happy doing something that does contribute to your overall brand and you can live off of that until you start making money money from the music because I know so many people. I think the problem is a lot of artists think like if they do something like that, it's final. That's what they're going to be known as, but the thing is you have so much time. You can do something for 10 years and then advance to the next level and not do like I put out content right now for 10 years like the way I'm doing and then one day I can upgrade to having a full show or something like that and not do that to the point anymore. So if you wanted to graduate from that type of artist or an artist that's considered a TikToker or a YouTuber, you can always graduate from that position especially once you get to the point where you're making some money and you're able to make some investments and you can find other things to do as an artist besides just posting content and getting to the point. Even though I wouldn't recommend that like if something's working for you I would keep doing it but if you're an artist like for example a lot of artists came out making mixtapes or doing freestyles and stuff like that or rap battle and just to kind of get their name and once they got their name they kind of stopped doing those things. They were just focused on the music in their career. Yeah I think people will be surprised they found out how many of these artists that they know and only primarily think of as music people like how long it took them to really make money from music in a serious way where like oh yeah no I really I was making most of my money off of like sponsorship deals due to the brand that I built even around my music right let's just say it's but it's a niche brand and it showed clearly the other brands that I'm valuable to reach this type of audience so really I'm making money from the brand the brands they look at me as a rapper because they're looking for a rapper to be a part of their campaign or something like that but the music directly it's usually going to come after even things like that. Right and if the music like a lot of artists don't want to be labeled you know tiktokers and youtubers but if the music is good it doesn't really matter how you get the exposure you know it's going to take off of people like the music is definitely going to grow and get to the point where it needs to be. Bro like you said it's only a moment in time at the end of the day all right like the only reason you won't last if the talent isn't there to go past that moment I think that's what people are scared of they don't know if they actually had the talent to get to that next moment. Yeah I agree you know if you want you know if you want people to know about you and you know and you want music to next level you can't expect to kind of start out where a lot of the established artists are where they're just releasing music and people are listening especially in the social media you know a lot of the people that succeed these days are the people that people feel connected to and the best way to do that is by putting out content and you know getting on youtube going live and just engaging with your audience. Let me take a quick second to say if you're looking for a music distributor that cares about educating their artists so they can get in a better position you should check out Two Loss because every single Monday they have office hours where they bring on dope people in the industry to hop on calls give artists insights on the future of the music industry and answer some of the questions they have going on in their personal careers so if you aren't a user of Two Loss or just want to have a little bit more information about them go to Two Loss on Instagram that's T-O-O-L-O-S-T Two Lost on Instagram and it'll take you to everything you need to see and for me about the sessions and more. Back to this episode for sure man let's get to your second tweet that I what we want to talk about you said being fancy want to track more fans a lot of artists think that if they pay for a big budget video and record at a big budget studio their song will yield more results but the truth is it is not authentic it won't make a difference. Right so I've seen people I've seen people invest you know tens of thousands into videos and studios and you know expect for their song to kind of blow up when they release the video but the truth is if people don't connect your story or people don't believe the type of music that you're making it doesn't matter how much you invest in it is not going to take off. If you look at like someone like XXXTentacion for example his biggest song that the first song that blew up it wasn't even mixed and mastered you know but people felt connected to it they liked it they liked the energy and it took off so honestly as an artist you don't want to put a lot of money into creating your product and creating the videos you want to you want to try to limit your spend in there so you can make as much content as you can and you know with the less amount of money but yeah just in my opinion I don't think anyone should you know invest a lot of money into studio time or a music video and think that that's automatically automatically going to get them the results if you want people to get behind your music to have to connect with your story or believe in the stuff that you're saying you know and that a lot of that comes with the image and you know just who you are as an artist like the kind of brand you put out but yeah that's technically what I think. Yeah now that's a good point because I think a lot of artists conflate quality with success and like you said like we've seen um what we're considered to be like low quality variations of things pushed through because the music attached to it was so good I mean we were talking about this like we've seen have videos from clients that would be visually one of the worst videos we've ever seen but the song behind it is great you know and it works out over us a video where I don't remember that one guy that had that crazy video that we didn't want to work I don't remember that but you know we've seen the exact opposite right where it's like okay this is amazing it looks crazy but there still isn't enough here to make it go you know what I'm saying. Like that happens to me all the time like I have people that have like great music great videos visuals are crazy but it doesn't connect with someone who's just doing a freestyle live from like a you know a room that doesn't even have lighting it's like it's crazy just because people feel connected to it and you know or believe in the artist you know because a lot of times people they want to see like people want to music is more like a lifestyle these days it's not just like a product to me I think like it's not just like something you can invest in and just kind of you know pay for the best stuff and make it blow it's more like a lifestyle these days if you look at all the artists especially in the hip-hop genre a lot of the people that are taken off it's like their their their image the videos they put out the music they put out it's all promoting a certain lifestyle that people want to be a part of or feel connected to in some way so you know if you want people to connect with you and you know make and as long as it's authentic you know and people connect with it I feel like it'll take off over something that's over produced and watered down. Well I was just having a conversation this is what I was telling you about before early on today in Chikori there's an artist that has a certain brand that his genre is a little bit more gritty you know what I mean it's a little bit more street right and he's working with some people who like a lot more or have a creative eye a great creative eye but it's coming from a different direction and they don't understand his fan base and where he's from because it's you have to actually be from that life to understand it a little bit more or at least legitimately study it and I was just able to say look man your audience isn't going to mess with that it's a cool video they might respect the creativity of how you present it but it doesn't do much for you at all in a realm of authenticity and if you want an example of street and and just feeling authentic and how much impact it has in that category you can look no further than Chief Cliff don't like. Yeah like that video just like dudes in the room it was raw as it can be look like it was shot on the like on the MacBook cam you know what I'm saying but it just felt so like these all these dudes all shirtless or whatever jumping up and down like looking how they looked or whatever like for that felt like authentic like it's like yeah y'all don't even look like y'all have the money to have uh well to have like those thought out music video or y'all don't we don't even see y'all as that a Pharrell creative like don't be a Chief Keith dude in the gutter like at ground zero and your video looks like Pharrell put it on you get I mean like and I think people don't understand that and they get caught up go ahead you have something you're about to say. I mean I see that all the time where like some videos seems like someone invested hundreds of thousands dollars into it and it only gets you know it still gets like a million views but it's like a lot was put behind it in order to get that one million views and you know and still people are not messing with it you know and I know a lot of examples I don't want to say names but then at the end of day I have other people that I work with and that called me and they're like they're they're barely investing in cover art or the music is good you know people feel connected to the music and literally they're not there you know once they have people connected to them and listen to their music and in a way where I don't know if you guys heard of superstar pride you ever heard of that artist superstar pride kind of like what he was doing and on tiktok he was just like a freestyling in the room just putting out videos connecting with his audience putting it in front of people that like it and then eventually you know it took off but yeah to go back to your point I don't I don't think it's necessary to and you know you don't want to look like like you said a video where it's highly high quality and looks creative and that's not what your audience is looking for they're looking for something more raw you know what I think I know what the problem is I think that most artists get caught up sometimes living their dream instead of selling their vision as an artist so you you came up seeing yourself as this superstar all right on the screen and now that you have a budget and the ability to put yourself in a high quality video to look like you have a lot of money to look famous all right you're creating that all right but you're not actually selling the art itself right the audience authenticity of what you're trying to push itself so instead it comes more it comes off more like oh this daughter felt like she wanted to be lady gaga for today so rich daddy like paid for her to dress up fancy get all the videographers that's what it feels like you might not be a daughter dad or daughter daddy convert um like type of situation you save your money you might be literally still broke or whatever but you just dressed up it feels like you're playing dress up character you know I mean that's and that's the problem fans want to see the progress you can't look like you can't look like someone you know who's just goes from zero to a hundred like it's very rare unless there's a lot of money behind it and it's like very well strategically planned out you know like you can't like me for example if I just started putting on jewelry and all this stuff and and start talking to my audience it you know it'll look different they'd be like what the heck is going on you know like people want to people don't want to see you go from zero to a hundred they want to see progress like how'd you get from point A to point B to point C I think people want to see all that these days and it was not like you cut it's very rare that an artist is going to be able to come out of nowhere and just you know like Lil Nas X and go from zero to a hundred you know overnight even though he was marketing his music with tweets and stuff like that for a long time but it's very rare that you have those artists where they just you know go from a zero to a hundred and look like you know that like they said that you know like they're playing dress up and then you know from overnight I think people want to see the progress and even when him people got to see the progress it happened faster but people were aware oh it was this guy who was on twitter oh like this song is in process of blowing up and now there's a story of how the song became big like they were able to see the story it happened like in a hyperbolic chamber but at least it was there for people to to experience but you just pop up yeah you skip steps it doesn't really work man like I think it's it's like let's not play dress up what is the art itself and then create a video that matches the art at the very least because some people might need a little bit more money to execute their videos creatively but make sure the more money you're putting into it has to do with communicating the art in a better way not just looking cooler you know I mean I agree yeah because a lot of people have like a perception and just this idea of what the artist should be you know and I think a lot they get it a lot from like just watching mainstream musicians and stuff like that or how they grew up to the you know listen to the artist they listen to but the truth is you know you can't take what what you see is work for someone else or that's working for someone else I think a lot of that comes from I think a lot of that thinking comes from artists thinking if they look like artists that's successful they're gonna be successful too you know even though that those artists didn't just go from zero to a hundred in that moment you know there was a lot of progress now here's another tweet you have man well actually I don't think this was officially a tweet you might have just black screened this on IG but making a song that 1000 fans listen to for the rest of their life is more profitable than making a song a million people only listen to once don't chase the short-term success focus on the long-term success avoid trends make timeless music what say you uh yeah so um a lot these days music because you know in the radio days if you were to make a song that you felt like you know everyone would like that would make more sense because everyone is you know listening to the same radios and this is kind of like the same program and but with social media and how things are everything's kind of spread out and um everyone's kind of niche base and everyone's just kind of finds what they like and they just listen to that over and over and over again you know and if you're an artist and you find um you know your audience and you find that little community of people it could be 30 000 to 100 000 people that listen to your music over and over again that really like it if you add up the numbers over time you get more views and streams like that you know and especially even if it's 150 000 people that listen you know like really like the song and then you know they save it and listen to it forever like that'll equate to more streams than you going for people who you think you know just for everyone to think that the song is if you're promoting to everyone and they all think it's okay it's not gonna really take off but if you promote it to a group of people that think the music is great and they listen to it over and over again that's usually the type of music that takes off and that's usually what the algorithm is looking to promote you know because they don't want to put something in front of people that they you know think is okay and don't necessarily come back to they want to keep pushing um the content in front of people that they keep streaming over and over again and that's kind of like my mentality with that it's better to find that niche where you're kind of fulfilling a specific audience that a lot of artists aren't necessarily creating content for you're just one of the few that fulfills that niche and those people keep listening to your music over and over again and those are usually the artists that end up blowing up anyways too because people when you make something as for everyone everyone likes different things and at the same time people have to see other people liking something before they like it too for example like when a lot of these soundcloud rappers came out at first they had a small niche following you know of people that were listening to their music and just kind of telling people that they were good everyone was telling them like a little pump and you know smoke curb are not good but their fans kept listening to them over and over again and driving up their numbers and eventually everyone else kind of saw that impact and they were they start kind of becoming fans of it they were jumping on the bandwagon so if you want to get to the point where everyone likes your music you kind of have to start out in a niche where you're fine you're making music for a small group of people and you're gonna have to just keep growing that community yeah that's a good point too because when you the way I kind of see it is when you start off in the niche you develop this core group of people who feel like they know you and you represent them and they fight for you harder right like I think smoke perp a little pump a great examples of that because at the time they were basically like counterculture right and so the fan base kind of felt like hey like you represent where I feel like I'm at in life so I need to champion you to make sure that there's a representation of me in my interest prevalent in the world right versus if you start massing you start with everyone knowing who you are then no one knows who you are right and they don't feel as attached to you or feel like there's a movement to necessarily like ride behind I agree I think people want to like identify with something you know and if they find someone that you know is making the kind that feels the same way as them and makes the music that they are into you know I think those are the people that are gonna have the most success you know like because I've seen artists that like labels program to you know put a lot behind and just push them out in front of everyone and those artists don't do good at all like no one likes their music like they edit their videos to where it sounds like it'll get mainstream success their their songs they'll mix and master them to make it seem like it will get like mainstream success and it just never works out I don't think I've ever seen that work out for an artist I've always seen the artists that are successful are always the ones that kind of have a little community and a little niche that they're representing and they're just making music for and sometimes it gets to the point where that niche grows and grows and those artists become mega superstars and sometimes it doesn't happen you know but at the end of the day you still get to you know make music and get paid for it and monetize yourself I guess that's how I look at it yeah no that's that's what to me too is also so interesting about the um like a lot of current artists have this sentiment where they feel like they don't want to necessarily speak for others or represent others they want to be their own individual and what I a lot of times think artists miss is that a lot of the best artists um and definitely I think a lot of the most successful artists are to other people like mirror reflections of them right like I feel like I look at you and I see something that is represent of me or my interest in it and that sentiment at least with the consumer community has only gotten stronger as more artists and creators have been more um more upfront about like their own personal interests and other things that they're they're into besides the music and so it's like at this point it's almost like if you don't represent something or I can't I can't look at you and or listen to you and figure out like what you're trying to represent you're almost well I would say almost you're you're literally counter what music fans are looking for today right and if you don't have like if you don't make content about other things and put it out on social media no one's gonna know who you are unless you have like a big budget and you can run ads and you know people are putting you in the background of their videos you figure out some way to like promote yourself that way um no one's gonna talk about you because everyone's on social media no one's looking for new music no one's goes on Spotify unless like they might subscribe to a playlist that they listen to some a song that they haven't heard of but no one's going to search for new artists so as an artist you have to figure out other things about yourself that connect with these people so that they can give your music a chance it's not even necessarily about the content it's just so you can get in front of the people that you want to hear your music and you know content is one of the best ways to do that you know and a lot I've seen a lot of artists um it's got to the point where like it's actually better to release content before you release music like you can build a brand based around who you are and as a person and what you represent before you release music and when you release music people listen to it if it's good it will take off and if it's not you know it's gonna kind of stop where it's at you talked about everybody not liking your music right you you got to be able to connect with a small group of people first and I think when you when you touched on the fact that those people oftentimes end up becoming bigger in the first place it really is about the career growing in stages and especially if you're an indie all right so we want to think of all think of it almost like a strictly business principle way of doing it like you're trying to keep the lights on you got to keep the lights on to be able to sell some more the next month and to try to grow and to try to hire people right and when you are assigned or you have a certain level of investment you can take more risk but if you're an indie like it's just about like what can I do right now to connect and keep the lights on today I don't have to do a million dollar home run today I just need to make 5k 1k you know maybe so today that looks like oh I'm connecting with five people all right I'm connecting with 20 people this small base is my version of keeping the lights on not like necessarily financially but just as a career I'm connecting with enough people right and because I do that that allows me to get to the next stage and have an opportunity to connect with a hundred people to connect with the next stage of people and I think people missed that part right it's like it's not because you need to stay small forever but connecting with a small base allows you the opportunity to take some swings at connecting with a bigger base and of course that's no balls over time right that's that's actually how like marketing like any I think that's actually how anyone is getting successful because if you look at like what drake did early on he came in the scene he was doing a lot of mixtapes a lot of like kind of hardcore rap and just kind of getting his foot in the door and then when he kind of had that audience that little Wayne had behind his music he started kind of expanding on to you know the other groups of people you know start making music for females and stuff like that and just kind of making pop records and then going on Jimmy Kimmel was like he slowly like that's the whole point is to find something that you that that you can connect with and identify with that other people will then you just keep growing that and using that to kind of go to the next stage you know use that to to take a swing at the next stage exactly yeah and another thing is everybody says they want to build a cult audience they want to build a cult fan base but they're not willing to do what cults do all right and what a cult does is they express a very strong opinions you know what that does that gets rid of all that stuff in the middle the people who are indifferent like you either hate me or you love me all right and a lot of artists don't want to go through that period where you say you want to do something different well go ahead and present something different enough where there's gonna be people who really rock with you like Jacory mentioned earlier they'll fight for you when those people say they hate you now i gotta decide oh shoot man like either i'm gonna fall to their opinion and stop messing with them all right or i'm gonna fight and tell you why this person is so dope right and now i'm gonna start spreading you because i want my team to be bigger dang i'm tired of fighting the world on Drake's behalf you know what i mean telling him that telling people that he's real rap and and and Drake isn't soft so i'm gonna bring some other people to recruit and tell them that that Drake is that next dude and eventually your fan base gets bigger you got a bigger army and now you're the one you're the army bully and other people and saying no these people aren't like Drake which people forget that era and i thought about Drake because you mentioned them but people forget that he went through that era that same type of thing where people felt strongly against him it's all about it's all about uh you know it's just to step at you know one step at a time just figuring out who you know figuring out your lane and then once you kind of are established in that lane if you want you know some people call that selling out too though a lot of people say that you um you know when you when you do something like what Drake did a lot of people will say that you sold out and stuff like that but you know at the end of the day only you know what you want as an artist and where you want to be so but you have to you have to figure out all the different steps figure out where you fit in figure out your lane and just kind of go from there until you you know take a swing at the next level yeah man like i feel like people shouldn't worry about selling out because it's really a perception in most cases than the reality and a lot of them because like you said a lot of artists you're the one who knows whether you're selling out or not right you don't even know me all the way bro like so you don't know i might have always wanted to do this this is what i've been working for you think i'm selling out because you're comparing it to how you saw me at first when i couldn't be all of me you know what i mean and i think that's a that's a big mindset that a lot of artists have is like they they had that plan you know like i think drake had that plan from the beginning you know he knew what he wanted and he knew how he was going to get it so and i think of artists look at some even though it's not relevant to today's day and age because it was like a mixtape era and stuff like that but if you look at just what any part is it is doing that has a following right now you know they all kind of came from they all had a little niche that they were fulfilling and then once they got that niche behind them they had everyone else paying attention to them and then they released something that was going to connect with that audience too and a lot of times it works a lot of times it doesn't you know and i definitely think that's the way though you know as an artist bro you made me think about like once you had that niche rolling right people are rocking with you it'll be people who didn't like you the first listen people gonna start doing double takes like i've seen i could just think of certain executives in my mind where they're like yo man i heard this dude music and i just thought he was trash but like now they're actively trying to figure out like what do you like about this guy like what do people like so they're starting to search because they don't understand it but they see enough motion where they know there's something real there and now you realize well maybe there's something i don't get i might be the problem because other people get it and that's kind of the power of like just focusing on your people you know yeah i agree with that because a lot of times honestly the people who are in charge of music they don't really know anything you know a lot of times that their suggestions like i work with a lot of labels and stuff they don't know what's going on like people are like they're all looking at trying to hire someone to figure it out you know that's the situation there and so personally i feel like the people know everything like if there's if there's 10 000 people saying someone is like really really really good and he's like the next you know big artist i feel like that's gonna get another 20 000 people interested and then so on and so on and it's just gonna keep growing and getting to the point where um you know every everyone's behind it that's how i look it yeah it's like the the labels and professionals in the music well even just i guess how do you bunch all on it you just call it music professionals i guess yeah executives diversmen well they're not all executives okay sort of professionals yeah so generally speaking most music professionals roles is to optimize the present not create the future so they're not necessarily looking for that there are some people who are literally looking for the future like you'll have some a and r's or people who are younger just trying to get on so it's like i got i the only way i can break through or the fastest way to break through is be attached to the future before the people who got the power right in the present can get on to it themselves so they got to come to me but i think like that's what leads to situations like this last tweet i want to go over um for this conversation you said if you look at any artist that's hot right now they got a lot of hate when they first started out young thug travis scott amigos etc now they are considered pioneers of the current sound so don't be discouraged if someone says your music isn't good stay consistent yeah actually like i i'm working with some artists right now that are like taking off and like some of them you know use auto-tune and stuff like that and like there are people a certain group of people like their music but then everyone a lot of people don't like it they're like you know this is too much auto-tune this is trash whatever you know but i feel like in every situation that's going to happen because once your music starts blowing up and a lot of people start coming across it they might not be the intended audience right away or they might not understand the type of music you're making in that in that moment but you know as it is is bubbling and growing and more people are promoting it and they hear it in in in restaurants clubs or whatever and it kind of grows on them they become fans of it eventually you know once people hear something over and over again they end up starting to like it because um you know that's a in my opinion is just it's just all about finding out who your audience is and then making making that making music for that audience and you know just kind of promoting yourself in a way where um people who haven't heard that you are going to be curious to who you are and just kind of keep seeing you over and over again and eventually your music is going to become you know something that um they like if people people don't like a lot of the music that they hear early on you know and it's not necessarily mean as good as just that not what they're accustomed to but if you keep putting it out there and there's people behind it that um you know promote the music and and share you and tell you that you're good and you know more and more people are gonna like it as well for sure for sure well hey man I appreciate you hopping on brother this has been such a dope conversation really should have you on the game man if you're down for it but everybody make sure y'all follow promo god at promo underscore god 33 um is there any thoughts that you want to leave us with or you know or something that you feel like people should reach out to you for uh the only thing I would say is if you're an up-and-coming artist um I'll try to figure out a way to minimize the cost like what it costs to beat you you know because a lot of times artists will come and they'll like try to have a big you know fancy look like gold chains and this they want to look like an artist that costs $100,000 to maintain just kind of the the look you know but personally I think you need to come in without any of that you need to come in as someone like that's um trying to connect like a normal person you know come off as someone like that people can connect with that people can relate to and just put yourself out figure a way to promote yourself without spending a lot of money you know especially with content and stuff like that figure out something about you that connects with people and create a bunch of content around that thing and put that out consistently and use that to promote your music so in my opinion I feel like artists need to get into place where um they create a brand for themselves that doesn't necessarily cost a lot to maintain every month you know you don't want to have to rely on spending money on ads just to get seen you know you want something else about you to connect with people so that when you put that content out and people agree with it and you know they like it because there's similar people to you to have a similar personality those are the people that are going to ultimately listen to your music and make it blow up and that is not going to cost you a lot compared to you know running ads and you know doing info center campaigns and stuff like that if you have your own following and people like you like you have all the control as far as marketing you know you can release anything and the people gravitate towards it you won't have to necessarily figure a way to campaign for it if that makes sense 100% man 100% man appreciate you having you appreciate having you on once again man thank you man i'm brand man shine i'm kory and this is yet another episode of no labels necessary peace